In a dark place

First meeting, 4D.  Big smile.

He takes me to the empty classroom next door.  Locks the door behind us.  Doesn't turn on the lights.  The blinds are drawn.

With a quick deftness he turns a desk around and invites me to sit.

I sit.

He sits in a desk next to the desk he's turned around, his facing the opposite direction, and scoots it closer.  A nest. A desk nest.  A strangely intimate setting created, in seconds, from the world's least sensuous furniture imaginable.  He promises this conversation is covered by the Seal of the Confessional.

As we talk, he leans toward me.  At some point, his outer thigh presses my outer thigh.  It feels reassuring.  I tell him much. much more than I intended to.  I am really so ready to have an adult's help with the mess I've gotten into over the summer.  I've been feeling suicidal.

He wants me to come back again.  He can help me.

In the Beginning

It started from the beginning, really.  I was a young girl in a plaid skirt and a crisp white blouse.  Kneeling behind a screen.

He wouldn't give me absolution.  Because when he asked if I was sorry for my sin, and intended to commit it no more, I honestly replied, "No."

He became emotional.  He'd never had to do this before.  "Do you want to meet with me tomorrow after school to discuss this matter further?" he asked in his deep voice.

Sure, OK.

"Can I see who you are?"

Ya, go ahead.

"Can I... just... give you a hug, girl?"

Um, ya, OK.

And then he did.  That particular "hug" I would come to know so well.

You know how adults hug- they bend forward at the waist, or they go in from the side.  Not this wretched fat man.

No, he pressed his whole fleshy body against me and held me tight, for an eternal 2 seconds.

And he told me to come, tommorow to room 4D.

The Girl

She is slim as a sapling.  But with breasts.  Not too large, but seemingly so due to the tininess of everything else.  Not an immodest girl. 

But really beautiful girls don't need to be.  How can a blossom hide its scent?  She is too innocent to know how.

Or to know she ought.

Sometimes I look back and pity her; often I look back at her in anger.  Poor thing.  She doesn't deserve it.  But how many days it feels like she does....

She is shy, because dryads are, you know.  Only Artemis puts us at our ease.

The Man

The man is fat and bald and blustering. 

Charismatic, most would say.

He has probably touched your children.  Nothing sinister, you know, but he is that close.  He could if he wanted to, anyway, because no one would stop him.

Except you, of course, if you are paying attention.

Not Only the Church

It has been said that priests are only some among many.

O sure, it's true.  But...

But it is different.  Very different.

When did you last come across a band teacher or a scout leader who has made a solemn, public oath to live a celibate life and to proclaim the Gentle Jesus to the world?

See?  It is different.  There is a higher standard at play.

Tell me there's not. 

Nothing is holier and finer than a priest serving the people of God.

And nothing is more vile, wicked, and disgusting than a priest using a child of God to serve himself.

Because someone must pay

Many days I find myself thinking that someone must pay.

But I am a Christian.  Many dryads are, you know.

And to be a Christian is to know that Someone has  paid.  But alas.  I am a tree nymph, not a Saint, and to realize that I may be waiting till the next life for justice....

Well, it makes for some bad days.

But if no one will pay till the afterlife, then at least someone will listen.  I may feel powerless to act, but I am not powerless to speak.

I am not powerless to speak.

The Story Begins

Every story must begin somewhere.  This one is no exception.

But what is a story without a listener?  Nothing, but worse than nothing.  Everyone has their story.  And everyone deserves to be heard.  And when we silence each other, we hurt each other. 

And you?  Have you come to listen?

Come then, and listen to my tales of woe.